


Sometimes, It's About You

by Ashkah



Category: Prince of Tennis, tennis no oujisama
Genre: A little angst, Fluff, M/M, maybe ooc?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-18
Updated: 2012-10-18
Packaged: 2017-11-16 13:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashkah/pseuds/Ashkah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inui wiill try anything to get his Kohai back, even if he has no idea why he lost him in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes, It's About You

Inui couldn't sleep. He hadn't been able to sleep well for the past four nights. Every time he tried to close his eyes and rest, an image of Kaidou would appear in the back of his mind, painfully reminding him of what he no longer had. Then he'd end up spending most of the night going through his notes, trying to figure out what went wrong until his alarm clock went off the next morning and he realized he had fallen asleep at his desk, and he would be no closer to the answer than he had been the night before. No matter how many times he went over things, or how many times he redid his calculations, it always came out the same. He did absolutely everything like he should have.  
  
So why did Kaidou break up with him?  
  
The restless nights were starting to take their toll on his daily performance as well. During tennis practice, serves missed their mark, and his observations lacked in accuracy. In class, he often found himself scratching down Kaidou's name absently when he should have been taking notes. Had he not had his glasses to shield them, people around him would have noticed the dark circles which were forming under his eyes.  
  
"I'm sorry, Senpai, but I think it is for the best."  
  
Inui didn't know what to do anymore. After the first night yielded no satisfactory results, he chose to try his hand at winning his kouhai back, and he made a list of ways to do it. The ideas ranged from practically legit, to the rather obscure, to things that most people wouldn't imagine Inui doing, and dispersed within them all were several attempts at apology, even if he had no idea as to what he needed to apologize for.  
  
One of his more desperate attempts involved the help of Echizen's cat, Karupin. He knew that if the young tennis star ever found out he had anything to do with luring the feline onto campus, he'd have a great deal to explain, but he had made sure there were no traces of him even being near the Echizen home that morning. His data calculated a 68% chance that Kaidou, upon hearing that the animal had made its way onto the grounds, would go searching for it consciously, and an 82% chance that he would be searching for it subconsciously.  
  
Not having a pet of his own, however, Inui miscalculated how much effort it would take to look after the fur-ball, and when Kaidou finally spotted the two, wrestling around on one of the courtyard benches, Karupin had been in the midst of trying to swipe the shiny set of glasses off of Inui's slightly disgruntled face. The situation, however humorous it might have been to the casual observer, didn't phase the mamushi one bit. His just hissed his indifference and stated, "Echizen wants his cat back," as he continued on his way to math class.  
  
By the end of the day, Inui had been exhausted mentally and somewhat physically. Pets were a pain, he decided, and he ended up dumping the animal into the locker-room before afternoon practice and proceeded not to show up at all. This earned him 50 laps around the courts from Tezuka the next morning, but he had been too frustrated to care much.  
  
It was a very fortunate turn of events for Inui that the afternoon's practice had been a free day. He had taken the chance to slip away at the end of classes and make his way to a little café down the block from the school without having been stopped or asked where he was headed along the way. He spotted a little shaded table, vaguely secluded from the other seating areas occupied with the shop's meager five or so customers, and claimed it for himself. After ordering his usual, he pulled out his worn notebook he had on Kaidou and flipped it over to his list.  
  
Every one of his carefully planned, or in Karupin's case, poorly planned ideas were crossed out neatly with one stroke each. The only thing which remained was the final number, which had nothing written beside it at all. All of his attempts had failed. Miserably. More so than his first ever attempt at creating Inui Juice, which said a lot in his data oriented mind.  
  
So utterly fixated on the hopelessness of it all, entertaining thoughts that he might not ever get his precious kouhai back, Inui didn't notice when a figure pulled the chair opposite him back and sat in it. In fact, his guest didn't bother saying anything until the waiter had returned with Inui's drink.  
  
"Saa, kiwi-lime. I never would have guessed."  
  
The soft but knowing voice pulled Inui out of his reverie with a start, and he looked up to see the smiling face of Seigaku's tensai looking at him from across the table. He opened his mouth to ask the prodigy how he had known that he would be there, but quicky decided that such a question was rhetorical. Everyone by now had accepted the fact that Fuji's ability to obtain information was both mysterious and vast, and when asked about it, he would find a way to get around answering every time.  
  
Instead he just closed his notebook and placed it back in his bag while answering, "Even I like things simple, sometimes." Like how he wished his problem with Kaidou could be solved with a simple 'I'm sorry,' and a chaste kiss.  
  
Fuji just smiled his little mischievous smile, and tilted his head to one side as if contemplating something. "It's also green. Any particular reason?"  
  
Something seemed off. Inui knew that Fuji wasn't one for making small talk. Usually when he sought one out, he had intention for doing so. The third year seemed to be stalling for something, and Inui's patience, though plentiful at other times, already looked to be wearing thin. "You could say I find the color a bit pleasing to the eye." He reached back down to his bag and pulled out his math assignment.  
  
"So it's your favorite color, then?" He didn't miss a beat did he?  
  
"I suppose, if you wanted to put it that way, yes."  
  
They sat in silence, Fuji, staring off into the street behind them and Inui, doing his math sets. His homework was something that he could have easily done in 20 minutes at home later that night, but he hoped that Fuji might get the hint to leave him alone without him having to be rude about it.  
Five minutes passed.  
  
"Say Inui, if you had to guess who on the tennis team knew you the best, who would you pick?"  
  
If Inui hadn't been efficient in self-control, he would have broken his pencil tip. What was Seigaku's second seed up to? Sighing, he dropped his pencil in favor of taking a sip of his smoothie. "Kaidou. Why?" Perhaps if he just answered the tensai's questions, he would leave.  
  
Fuji wrinkled his brow, as if in deep thought, or as if something was troubling him. "Hmm, see, I thought so as well, so I went to him hoping that he'll be able to answer some questions of mine. I've been looking into a birthday present, you see. It is coming up, right?"  
  
Inui just nodded, slightly in shock that Fuji would even bother going to Kaidou at all.  
  
Fuji took that as a sign to continue. "Well, he just glared at me and said a bit harshly that he knew just as much about you as any of the rest of us did."  
  
Inui just stared at the prodigy. He was having trouble deciding whether he was more shocked that Fuji had asked someone like Kaidou for advice about him, or that Fuji had been here for almost 10 minutes and still hadn't hinted at any sort of reason for being there. He chose to pursue the latter. "Fuji, what is your point?"  
  
The smiling tennis player seemed to have focused on what Inui could only ascertain to be a person walking slowly down the sidewalk outside the gate, and it took him a second to answer. "Well, I just got to thinking that, if it were me, I'd be a bit upset that people felt I should know the most about a person, yet in reality, I only knew as much as the next person, and perhaps not even that. Especially since, for others to think that, I would have to be quite close to said person."  
  
Well... shit. So the genius did have a reason after all. The sadistic bastard certainly took long enough to reach it, though. Of course, Fuji never was the type to just out right say what was on his mind. He always had to make people fish for the meaning behind things. Although, this time, Inui might have said that the fish hit him right in the face.  
  
Fuji didn't wait for a reply. He just pushed himself from his seat and grabbed his things. "Aa, there's Tezuka. I'll see you at practice tomorrow afternoon then. Good-bye, Inui." And with that, Fuji had left. Just as well, because Inui wasn't even sure, later on, that he even could have given the boy a decent reply. He could have gotten a chuckle or two out of the conversation, had he stayed just a few seconds later to see the straw drop from Inui's stunned mouth, but that would be about it.  
  
Inui sipped the rest of his drink down faster than he intended, eliciting a temporary headache from the bridge of his nose going numb, then grabbed his own belongings and headed home.  
  
That night, he pulled a fresh green notebook from his desk drawer, the same color as his racket, and his bed sheets, and several of his juices he concocted in the past. He mused that he was really quite fond of the hue, before pulling out a green pen and starting to write.  
  
The shrill sound of his alarm clock going off awoke Inui the next morning, and he noted with just a hint of amusement that he had fallen asleep at his desk again. After going over the things he had written down the night before, he scribbled one last thing into the book, then placed it with his homework and went to get ready for school.  
  
He debated with himself all morning, trying to determine when the best time would be to intercept his kouhai. In the end, he figured it would be best outside the prying eyes of their teammates, so that afternoon during Kaidou's self-training it would be, which he recalled with just a bit of sadness that he hadn't been a part of for the past few days. He felt 96% sure that he perceived Fuji's hints as they were meant to be, but his past failures contributed to him still feeling a bit of apprehension at the confrontation. After all, in any other given situation, he was certain that those ideas of his would have worked.  
  
One of the things that he knew that he could be 100% sure on was the younger player's ability to be where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there. This didn't stop Inui from being relieved, however, when he spotted Kaidou jogging into the park at the normal time.  
  
As Kaidou passed Inui's resting place, the data user cleared his throat, quite sure that it would be all that was needed to get the bandana clad youth's attention. It seemed his calculations were hitting their marks again. That looked to be a good sign.  
  
Kaidou slowed to a stop at the noise, and let out a slow hissing breath when he realized that it had been Inui who had caught his attention. Inui noted from his spot, resting against the trunk of a tree, that Kaidou looked irritated from the disruption of his routine, and was about to start up again.  
  
"Wait, Kaidou, just a minute, please." Inui thought he caught the tiniest bit of pleading in his request. His kouhai must have caught it as well, because it took him a minute, but he complied, and turned to face Inui. Not that he wouldn't have anyway. The way Kaidou’s family brought the boy up saw to that. He was avoiding eye contact, though.  
  
"Yes, Senpai?" Pulling the fresh green notebook from under his arm where it had rested, he slowly approached Kaidou and handed out to him in invitation. Kaidou, fo his part, tried not to visibly flinch at the sight of it, but was able to relax a little, and even raise an eyebrow in question when he realized it was being offered to him. "What's this, Senpai?"  
  
"It's for you, Kaidou."  
  
The Junior gave his senior a quizzical look, but accepted the book anyway. He took one look at the cover, then looked back up, silently asking if it was okay to see inside. Inui nodded his assent and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose has he was accustomed to doing often. He watched as Kaidou hesitated a second before opening it to the first page.  
Another thing he liked about his kouhai had to be the play of honest emotions which made their way across Kaidou's face when he was particularly affected by something. This time showed no differently, and he found himself rewarded with flashes of shock and wonderment as realization came to Kaidou as to what the notebook actually contained.  
  
"This is . . . this is all about you, Inui-senpai."  
  
"It is." He let Kaidou skim the pages of neat handwriting. Stats, figures, likes, dislikes, all about himself. All the beginnings that he placed into his own notebooks pertaining to others. "Is it all right, Kaidou?"  
  
His doubles partner gave a low hiss, but didn't turn away. He just continued to flip through the written pages. "It is a start. But, Inui-senpai, there are only six pages of data here. What do you expect me to do with the remaining pages of the book?"  
  
Ah, he had hoped Kaidou would ask him something to that effect. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the green pen he had haphazardly taken with him when he left home that morning and presented it to the boy in front of him. "Whatever you feel like doing with them."  
  
Kaidou accepted the pen, rather slowly though, and took one last look at the last page before closing it and bringing his gaze to that of his Senpai’s. "You are welcome to join me on my run, if you'd like."  
  
A ghost of a smile crossed Inui's face. "I'd like that."  
  
They ran in silence, just enjoying one's company, yet even still, Inui could tell that Kaidou had something going through his mind. "What is it, Kaidou?"  
  
If he didn't know any better, he would have sworn he saw Kaidou's lips twitch upward an instant. "It's nothing, Senpai. Just wondering if the desk of yours felt comfortable, since you tend to fall asleep at it a lot."  
  
  
~Owari~


End file.
